She departs Thursday and is scheduled to attend meetings and talks with officials in the Cook Islands, China and the Russian city of Vladivostok, as well as touring Asia. She will not return to the United States all next week, according to reports.

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The State Department announced in April that Clinton would not be attending the Democratic National Convention, which begins next week in Charlotte, N.C.

"As secretary of State, she is no longer engaged in retail politics, but she remains a keen observer," former State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley toldReuters. "I'm pretty sure she'll be closely monitoring what happens there. She has good sources, one in particular, who will be in a good position to tell her what happened."